Featured Blogger: Christine from the Cooking Crusade & Creamy Mushroom Pasta With No Canned Soup Recipe

Hello, my friends! For those who are living in Victoria, I hope you’re soaking up every minute of the sunny weather over the Labour Day weekend!

Ensuring not to turn my blog into all about me, it is my privilege to shine the spotlight on other fabulous bloggers in Australia from time to time. 🙂 Hence, I’ve decided to reboot my featured blogger series which I’ve started last year. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it entails a Q&A, as well as I’ll make a recipe or DIY project which they have featured on their blogs.

I am proud to present my first blogger feature of 2015. She is Christine from Cooking Crusade whom I met at the Eat Drink Blog event in Adelaide back in 2012. Gosh, I can’t believe it was 2 years ago since we’ve met! As I am incredibly awkward in a networking event, it put me at ease to meet a bubbly and approachable person like Christine and naturally, we bonded over our mutual interests of home cooking and of course, food blogging!

Intro

Hi! I’m Christine, a Filipino/Australian 26 year old food blogger from Sydney. I started blogging in early 2010 to collect my favourite recipes to help me decide what to help cook and also to encourage myself to take on more cooking challenges. I love creating simple and cheap recipes for those who are on a budget or trying to save a few dollars. I also document my restaurant adventures on the blog as I love to try new and different dishes and adore a good dining experience!

A desire to compile my own recipes and wanting to learn more about cooking.

How did you come up with the blog name?

I liked the alliteration of cooking and crusade – and Christine’s Kitchen was taken 😛 haha.

Blogging highlight(s).

Definitely meeting so many great bloggers and sharing our united love and obsession for food! I have also loved attending the Eat Drink Blog conferences and learning so much about blogging – the ethics of writing, the legalities and interesting tips on photography which have all really helped me grow my blog.

This year I’ve really dedicated myself to learning more technical cooking skills and am keen on doing as many cooking classes as my budget allows! I hope to be able to learn more about what works in the kitchen and why and share these thoughts on the blog – as well as improve the way I cook so I can share better quality recipes to the blog. I also am interested in updating my blog layout and working more on social media platforms – so many goals, so little time!

Any advice to those who wish to start a blog?

Spend a good amount of time on a memorable blog name – once you’ve got the domain, you’re stuck with it! Think about different things to blog about that nobody else does and you’ll find a niche audience to build on. Don’t plagiarise other people’s work – always give credit where credit is due and be true to yourself – write for yourself and find your voice. Finally, blogging is hard work but it can be very rewarding, but it sometimes takes years for the work to pay off.

Thank you Christine for being part of the blogger series!

I have re-created Christine’s creamy chicken and mushroom pasta with a tweak of my own. As her recipe already includes a canned mushroom soup, I’ve decided to make a recipe without it. This means whether you have a canned soup at home or not, creamy mushrooms pasta is still feasible. 🙂

As Christine has said, this is creamy pasta is amazing! Creamy and garlicky, this is a crowd pleaser. Furthermore, this is also an incredibly easy recipe which should be in your weeknights repertoire!

When butter begins to bubble, add onion, garlic and thyme. Saute until the onion is translucent and the garlic becomes aromatic.

Add sliced mushrooms and mix well. Allow the mushrooms to cook until their size reduced in half and you'll see the juice oozes out of the mushrooms.

Sprinkle the flour over the mushrooms and mix well. Cook the mushrooms further for a minute.

Add vegetable stock, a quarter cup at a time. (Add the first quarter cup of stock, stir to combine with the mushrooms and allow the mixture to cook over low heat until thickened. Follow by the second quarter cup of vegetable stock, mix well. Simmer the mixture until thickens and add the next quarter cup of stock. Repeat the same process until you finish with all the stock).

Add low fat milk and continue to simmer the mixture until thickens.

When the mixture resembles cream of mushroom soup, add cheese. Cook further until the sauce becomes thickened (imagine thick velvety cheese sauce). Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

Toss in cooked pasta shell and mix well. The pasta is now ready to serve.

Hi Emily. Thank you so much for this mushroom soup recipe. It’s perfect with garlic bread. They complemented each other the way how best wagyu beef taste heaven when we add mushroom gravy. Looking forward for more recipes!

Leftover Makeover

Disclaimer

This blog is a personal blog written, photographed and edited by me unless it was stated otherwise. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blogger’s own. Although it may claim otherwise, this blog does not offer any kind of professional advice, unless otherwise noted. See here for my disclosure policy.